


Swim

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [67]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Altair couldn't swim, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bleeding Effect, Canon History, Clay Lives, Flashbacks, Gen, Modern!Altair, Modern!Ezio, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt!Fill. Modern AU.</p><p>He is going to drown in an ocean of sand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZpanSven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZpanSven/gifts).



He was drowning in an ocean of sand.

 

He was drowning in an ocean of sand, and he would die before reaching Masyaf; he would never be there in time. Robert had told him, his teacher was a snake come the dawn; far be it for him to denie the words of a dying man, for who would lie when death was at their door? And he had known, in the darkest depths of his hearts, that Al Mualim bore no good will to him in the recent months. When there were no targets left to hunt, every good blade need be put were no hands would ever touch it again.

 

He was a blade, was an eagle, a changed man, a different man than the one that had first confronted Robert, that had gotten Kadar killed-- Malik had told him so, and he had more faith in Malik's opinion of him then he had of himself.

 

But he was drowning, and Malik would make it to Masyaf without him, unaware of what would be waiting for him, and Malik would die just like Kadar had died and it would all be his fault---

 

"Desmond, snap out of it!" A name and a language he knew snapped to him through the dunes; the tongue he heard in Acre, in the docks, in the poor district. He knew it, but not well.

 

Well enough to know that was not his name. He opened his mouth to cry such to the strange voice; sucked in a mouth full of sand, and hacked it out again, clawing for his throat. Trying to. But he was buried in sand and drowning, he could not breathe, he couldn't, he was trapped--

 

"Desmond! Ezio, damn it, help me!"  
  
Sand yelped. Another hallucination said something in what might have been Phoenician, something far-fetched across the Mediterranean, something some of the Crusaders sometimes spoke. He knew enough of the language too, to understand when they meant harm and to make out most of what they meant otherwise, and he knew it very well when it was the poor begging for food or money, because Allah knew he heard that often enough--

 

"I am trying! Did you teach this boy to have quite the elbow?"

 

"Dirty tricks are necessary in American cities."

 

"Aahh, but they have such beautiful-- Uncle Mario!"  
  
"What is going on here?" A rougher voice, in the same Templar-spoken tongue he sometimes heard when they realized who was coming. He tried not to let them know.

 

"We don't know. He just started thrashing...!"

 

"He's having a nightmare! They happen. Just help me hold him still."  
  
"Altair, stop!" Acre's English, a swirl of Templar-- Italian? Latin? He did not know. They were languages. They did not have names unless they were needed, and he'd never needed to know, but now this voice caught his breath in his throat and he froze.

 

This mirage knew his name...?

 

The others had gone strangely quiet too, and in the ocean he let himself wait, wait, wait...

 

"It is not deep enough to drown, novice. Get out of the surf and go back to bed."

 

Malik? But Malik didn't...

 

"Get out of the surf and go back to bed," Malik repeated more firmly, his voice the low growl he'd remembered. Malik had never spoken in this language to him, but well, this was Malik. He'd known it as well as him. It would be Malik who would use it to punish him, knowing how thin his grasp was. "If you make a one-armed man come in to get you, I will set you up to train every single Cadet in Rauf's place and when you are done I will hand you to the Matrons."

 

The battle was over then? They had won? They had won. He could rest... as soon as he got out of the surf.

 

"...Clay? How did you know what to do?"  
  
A derisive snort, even as he settled back onto the bank, breathed in air and listened to the water, too far away to touch him. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about the mirages that lingered nearby. "You couldn't swim. I collected pages of you teaching us how to swim-- wonderful wisdom of a by-gone great eagle. Leonardo and I could not understand why it was there until I found your keys!"

 

"...Altair, you cannot swim?"  
  
"Yes, Master Mario, I -can- swim. Ezio, you will stop laughing -right now- if you value all your teeth."

 

"...laughing mirrors. I feel like I am in Lewis' world. Cheshire cats..."  
  
"...young Kaczmarek? Are you well?"

 

"..I am Ezio, uncle. Fredrico was my older brother."

 

"..ah."

 

...he hoped they would go away soon.


End file.
